If I go to a school with a 2.5 and a 150 and the other freshmen have 4.0s and 170s, then I will have a perhaps 2% chance of being in the top 10%.

the other freshmen, eh?

Nice catch, Z

lol, i couldn't resist. i was checking on my baseball team, happened to drop by, and had to log in.

also, even though i'm an 0L, i have to say that Matthies is usually right on the money and what he is saying lines up with what every other law student has ever told me; being overconfident is the kiss of death and law grades are unpredictable.

If I go to a school with a 4.0 and 170, and I know the rest of the incoming class has a 2.5 and a 150, then the chances are greater-maybe around 90%- that I'll be in the top 10%.

Thinking like this, even remotely, even long before law school starts, is a bad, bad idea. Ask anyone here who is law student we have all had our butts handed to us by people with lower stats. The oneís who think like this get their butts handed to them even more often. Law school is the great equalizer, start thinking your going to be successful because you did well on the LSAT and someone with out the luxury of confidence will rip by you.

The worse you think youíll do the better you do, the better you think youíll do the worse youíll do. It happens every year at every law school. Itís the people who are scared, those are the ones who put in the Herculean effort, itís the people who think they can slip by who end up fighting it out second semester to make up the ground they lost for being too confidant.

I definitely agree with this. Wasn't there a poster who gave up a mid tier 1 for a t4 with $$? She had higher stats than most of her peers, yet she wasn't in the top of her class and lost her scholarship.

I definitely agree with this. Wasn't there a poster who gave up a mid tier 1 for a t4 with $$? She had higher stats than most of her peers, yet she wasn't in the top of her class and lost her scholarship.

To add to this, some lower ranked schools, not all, but some, give out more scholarships than they plan to actually "pay out" for three years. They put all of their scholarship recipients in the same section, thus forcing the majority of the scholarship recipients to lose their $.

If I go to a school with a 4.0 and 170, and I know the rest of the incoming class has a 2.5 and a 150, then the chances are greater-maybe around 90%- that I'll be in the top 10%.

Thinking like this, even remotely, even long before law school starts, is a bad, bad idea. Ask anyone here who is law student we have all had our butts handed to us by people with lower stats. The oneís who think like this get their butts handed to them even more often. Law school is the great equalizer, start thinking your going to be successful because you did well on the LSAT and someone with out the luxury of confidence will rip by you.

The worse you think youíll do the better you do, the better you think youíll do the worse youíll do. It happens every year at every law school. Itís the people who are scared, those are the ones who put in the Herculean effort, itís the people who think they can slip by who end up fighting it out second semester to make up the ground they lost for being too confidant.

I definitely agree with this. Wasn't there a poster who gave up a mid tier 1 for a t4 with $$? She had higher stats than most of her peers, yet she wasn't in the top of her class and lost her scholarship.

I'm not a she, and I gave up a mid tier 1 with few $$ for a t3 with a full ride, but other than that this pretty much describes my experience.

Also, I'm pretty sure that it can be attribed mostly to the 'confidence factor' as Matthies describes it, since my gpa for 2L and 3L, after having had my ass handed to me the previous year, averages somewhere around 3.8.

I definitely agree with this. Wasn't there a poster who gave up a mid tier 1 for a t4 with $$? She had higher stats than most of her peers, yet she wasn't in the top of her class and lost her scholarship.

To add to this, some lower ranked schools, not all, but some, give out more scholarships than they plan to actually "pay out" for three years. They put all of their scholarship recipients in the same section, thus forcing the majority of the scholarship recipients to lose their $.

Orangebanana, try not to take too much offence to what people say on here. A lot of LSDers get some sort of thrill out of insulting people. Your question is legitimate and I understand your logic. However, this is a hard question to answer. I actually chose a lower ranking school (though not a T4) because they offered money. I hope I can keep the GPA requirement to keep the scholarship and make the decision worth while, but I'm not banking on it. However, the school that I chose will still insure me a job if I do not stay at the top of my class. If you are concerned about the cost of the school, my advice is to choose a school that offers a reasonably priced education, but don't go to a school that will have a worthless education if you are not able to be in the top 10%.

Here's my 2 cents (mainly b/c I just got out of a final & am looking for ways to avoid studying for Thursday's exam):

I tended to make friends w/ highly motivated people 1L yr. Virtually all of us ended up in the top 10-15% (though, oddly enough, that wasn't my study group...but that's another topic). I don't think it is a coincidence. Rather, I think we got along well because we all knew what we wanted to get out of law school & how to get it. Thus, I think if you are like us (probably putting in 1.5x as much time as most of the student population) then you can do well.

With that said, it's a gamble. There are plenty of people who work very hard & their effort just doesn't translate into grades. I never doubted my work ethic or abilities for a minute, thus I didn't think of it as a huge gamble to go to a lower ranked school. At the same time, I often give others the generic "go to the best school you can" advice because I don't know how they will do in law school. More than anything, you need to know your own personal strengths/ weaknesses & determine if you really give yourself 10:1 odds or if you can pull it off.

Conventional wisdom says go to the best school you can. But some of us take the risk & come out on top, only with less debt. It's not an easy decision & we all like to think we're the smartest one in the bunch. Good luck.